Online budget hotel brands bet on corporate travel

Online budget hotel brands, hotel aggregators and home accommodation providers could be increasingly banking on corporate customers to take their business forward.

Sidharth Gupta, co-founder of one year old budget hotel brand Treebo which operates on a franchise model said it added about 250 new corporate partners in the April to June quarter and plans to add 500-600 new corporate partners in the second half of this year to its existing list of 850 corporate partners across sectors.

Treebo announced its series A investment of $ 6 million by SAIF Partners and Matrix Partners last year.

"Companies are looking to cut costs and a brand like ours works for the junior and mid management staff. About 30-40% of our sales are from the corporate business," said Gupta.

FabHotels recently launched FabPlus, a dedicated booking portal for their corporate/SME clients, which allows clients to book FabHotels on the go, with preferential rates year around and extra privileges such as rewards on repeat bookings, free room upgrades, complimentary office transfers, 4G dongles and more. FabHotels has over 200 registered corporates and over 3,000 SME clients.

"Today less than 80% of bookings are from business travellers. These business travellers make an average of 2-3 trips a month, often to same cities or destinations, and are extremely loyal to their preferred brands," said Adarsh Manpuria, co founder, FabHotels.

OYO announced the availability of its self-serve platform for business travellers on its mobile app two months ago. Called, 'OYO for Business', the platform offers rooms to cater to the needs of corporate travellers.

The company said the development followed a six-month period of testing with 1600 companies, including large corporates, SMEs and start-ups wherein companies witnessed average savings of 30% on their travel-related expenses.

American Express Global Business Travel (GBT) announced a commercial agreement with Airbnb last month, linking home sharing accommodation to corporate travel programmes for the first time.

"Airbnb for Business gives business travellers access to more than two million homes around the world, and the ability to explore a city like a local, even if it's just for one night," Lex Bayer, head of Global Payments and Business Travel at Airbnb had said in a statement.

The new referral partnership is aimed at making Airbnb for Business more accessible to GBT customers and to allow data transfer and traveler tracking.